Today’s Skirmish in the Democrats’ War On Women’s Brains

I’m afraid this may become a daily occurrence. Today’s kerfuffle involves Mike Huckabee, who gave a talk to the National Republican Committee in which he criticized Democrats for treating women like idiots. This is the relevant excerpt:

I think it’s time for Republicans to no longer accept listening to Democrats talk about a war on women. Because the fact is, the Republicans don’t have a war on women. They have a war for women. For them to be empowered; to be something other than victims of their gender. Women I know are outraged that Democrats think that women are nothing more than helpless and hopeless creatures whose only goal in life is to have a government provide for them birth control medication. Women I know are smart, educated, intelligent, capable of doing anything anyone else can do.

Our party stands for the recognition of the equality of women and the capacity of women. That’s not a war on them, that’s a war for them. And if the Democrats want to insult the women of America by making them believe that they are helpless without Uncle Sugar coming in and providing for them a prescription each month for birth control because they cannot control their libido or their reproductive system without the help of the government, then so be it, let’s take that discussion all across America because women are far more than Democrats have made them to be. And women across America have to stand up and say, “Enough of that nonsense.”

I am hard pressed to see anything wrong with this, and certainly agree with Huckabee’s point. Some conservatives have suggested that no politician should utter the word “libido,” and they may be right. But Huckabee’s sentiments are entirely unobjectionable. Nevertheless, Democrats raced to misreport and misconstrue what Huckabee said. NBC News reporter Kasie Hunt, for example, tweeted:

After being roundly abused on Twitter, she issued a “clarification” to the effect that “Huck says DEMS blv ‘helpless without Uncle Sugar.’”

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee was fundraising off Huckabee’s speech within a matter of hours. In a sign of the times, the DCCC reported Huckabee’s remarks more accurately than NBC News did, at least in the first instance:

If you’re a Democratic woman, Mike Huckabee thinks you’re dumb.

This is the precise opposite of what Huckabee said, but when Democrats start raising money, truth is the first casualty.

Today, in a speech to a room full of Republican operatives, Huckabee claimed that women who support contraception coverage are just being duped by Democrats. If you aren’t fuming already, here’s the direct quote:

[Democrats tell women] they are helpless without Uncle Sugar coming in and providing for them a prescription each month for birth control because they cannot control their libido or their reproductive system without the help of government.

It’s revolting. If Boehner and Congressional Republicans want us to believe that they have stopped their war on women, they can start by denouncing Huckabee’s comments immediately.

After a plea for money, the Democratic Party continued:

The leaders of the Republican Party need to step up NOW to denounce Huckabee’s sexist diatribe.

You can’t make this stuff up. Crazy as it may seem, we are going to be hearing this kind of nonsense from now until November.